HOT TOPICS
SPOTLIGHT AGENCIES
BMTC Meeting Update - Need innovative ideas!
Written By Rithesh - 2 April, 2009
Bangalore BMTC BBMP Praja Bus BMLTA Volvo Meeting Action public transport
Today, a small team of Praja members interacted with Traffic Team at BMTC headed by the CTM(O). Following are the minutes of the meeting:
The agenda was to look at ways to popularize and increase the ridership of the Volvo services. A two way approach was suggested -
- To provide quality information to the current users
- Encourage private vehicle users to switch to Volvo services (attract new customers)
Some of the suggestions were -
- To upgrade/update the BMTC website.
- Provide a section dedicated to Volvo services, detailing all the routes and time schedules.
- Use of "Moving Maps" to dynamically map buses on to maps - once all buses are fitted with GPS tracking devices.
- Re-introduction of YelliEdira service.
- Use FM radio to popularize services - organize weekly/daily contests based on Volvo routes.
- Advertising campaigns at major IT hubs/companies - MG road/Electronic City/Whitefield (Will need the help of Praja members to help co-ordinate these campaigns).
- Putting up Volvo bus fares/routes and time tables at all bus stands.
- Once BMTC volvo website is updated, an email campaign would be started. Assistance from civic groups like Hasiru Husiru, CAF and others along with Praja will be needed to spread the reach.
- Actively sort feedback from customers and work on them.
Feedback collection mechanisms that were suggested -
- Phone based feedback (a dedicated line to be operated by BMTC to record customer feedback - could be an automated recording system).
- SMS based feedback (customers can send SMS to specified numbers with suggestions). In both Phone based and SMS based solutions, the contact numbers could be widely advertised within the buses for easy accessibility.
- Feedback forms asking specific questions within Volvo buses and popular malls (discount coupons could be provided to encourage people to use the forms).
- Feedback section on BMTC website.
Other Miscellaneous issues that were discussed at the meeting -
- Kendra Sarige (HOHO) service routes have been changed - updated routes to be put up on BMTC site shortly.
- Introduction of high parking fee to discourage use of private vehicles.
- Need for congestion taxes and dedicated bus lanes.
- Fleet expansion (currently there are 310 Volvo buses, 200 more will be inducted in the next one year).
- Need for BMLTA.
- Delays in the formulation of BMLTA act.
- Inter department co-ordination problems - between BBMP and BMTC.
- BBMP owns all bus shelters in Bangalore. Though BMTC has requested for more than 3000 bus stands, BBMP is progressing very slowly. New bus stands are being introduced only in high visibility locations (advertising benefits) and others areas are being ignored by BBMP.
- The advertising rights in bus shelters completely owned by BBMP. Though a plan was put forward to BMTC to display live real time bus schedules/arrival times on LED/LCD panels at bus stands, the plan had to be shelved because, BMTC didnt have the rights to display such panels at the bus stands.
What BMTC expects from the general public and Praja -
- General ideas on how to popularize public transport in general and Volvo services in particular.
- How to encourage non IT crowd to use Volvo services.
- Better ideas for advertising - please add on to the above suggestions.
- Help in advertising campaigns (will need coordinator to at large companies and IT parks to facilitate campaigns).
- Ideas on Map based passenger information systems.
-
Feedback on routes - route rationalization and costing are important issues that they are looking into, but their current priority is to increase ridership and make the service self sustaining.
- Public pressure on BBMP to allocate advertising real estate at bus stops to BMTC and for construction of bus stands and bus bays.
Praja members please put on your thinking caps and suggest ideas to popularize Volvo services and increase their ridership. The next task would be to engage in route ratinalization and costing (but these are secondary at the moment).
BBMP engagement managers please raise the BBMP specific issues listed about with the BBMP authorities.
Hence forth such meeting will be announced publicly on Praja and anyone interested can join. Due to lack of time and co-ordination issues the meeting was a closed one.
COMMENTS
kbsyed61 - 2 April, 2009 - 03:35
Manjari, Sudheendra and BMTC EM team,
Great going. Really appreciates your efforts in organizing thsi meeting at very short time and making it a success. Also thanks for posting the detailed meeting minutes. Now the ball is in Praja's court and it is now our duty to respond to the BMTC's call.
To take this task forward, pls call a PRAJA meeting (perhaps online) and formalize some action items that Praja members can take up.
Prajagale, pls post all your innovative ideas and pls do join the Praja BMTC team to showcase the great work that Praja members have been doing since its online presence.
navshot - 2 April, 2009 - 08:36
Rithesh,
Please don't think I'm trying to discourage your great initiative, but I don't understand the intention behind this drive. Are you trying to popularize Volvo? Why? I think we should spend our efforts to popularize public transport in general. If they are not able to make money out of Volvo, then that's a different case - basically they procured more Volvos than required. They weren't being smart, right?
Getting the basics right and then improving awareness of public transport is the right thing to do. There are no short cuts.
Nevertheless, here are some of the thoughts putting myself into the shoes of general public and IT crowd:
1. I don't care if its a Volvo or Tata or xyz
2. The bus stops should be accessible by walk from places I start/visit - eg: 500 mts/5 mins from my home/office
3. Ideally not more than 1 hop (though I'm ok with 2)
4. Total wait for bus at the stops should not be more than 10 mins - basically frequency of less than 5 mins
5. Buses should not be crowded - ideally one should get a seat, but I'm ok if I have to stand (but not pushed around by the crowd)
6. Buses should have reasonable cleanliness (this is usually not a problem in BMTC)
7. I should be able to cover the distance at 20km/hr., end to end within the city limits today and maybe with a vision of improving it to 25km/hr (30 maybe a long term goal). Ofcourse, this last point is not an actionable item only for BMTC - this is more like BRT and such.
-- navshot
kbsyed61 - 2 April, 2009 - 11:42
navshot,
The end objective is to push for better Public transport and that needs lot of improvements on its various supporting infrastructure that you have mentioned. This engagement with BMTC is an window of opportunity to work with BMTC and form a relationship to work for the greater objective. Popularizing Volvo is a kind of pushing for more PT ridership.
Appreciate your comments. All the Praja initiatives are open to all and the very fact that these are posted on public domain are for greater audience and their participation. Please join the team and Praja definitely needs lot of help for its various initiatives including BMTC. Pls PM manjari, sudheendra or ritesh for further information.
Regarding the routing and scheduling, yes, the existing structure is not the right one for today's needs. There have been lot of suggestions, in fact some with concrete proposals. I am sure Praja BMTC EM team would take this up with BMTC and work on to ensure that every locality in the B'lore have a reasonable PT connectivity. But this needs lot of efforts, patience like a TEST MATCH.
nl.srinivas - 2 April, 2009 - 09:47
I appriciate the fact that you met the BMTC officials and there was a very useful interaction regarding how to improve things. But it would be nice if you can extend your ideas to involve all the people not just the "elite" crowd. The intention should be IMHO to improve the overall public transport scene. Sorry if I am being preachy.
I can think of a few things to improve the quality of service.
The current BMTC service tries to connect all the parts of the city to a ver few number of centers like KBS, KR Market , shivajinagar. What I would suggest is to drop this idea.
1. Instead we can have services originating from the central district (like the BIG10) and terminate radially at the peripheral parts of the city.
2. We can have concetric services which connect these radial routes through ring routes (like the buses which ply on the ring road). There can be 4 or 5 concentric services at various distance from the cental district.
3. Also provide services to the KBS, Satellite bustand(mysore road) , Shivajinagar and KR Market seperaltly or tailor the above mentioned routes to include these in the route.
This would decongest the traffic and also give better connectivity to all parts of the city. I just hope that there are proper roads to consider this plan.
nl.srinivas - 3 April, 2009 - 05:20
Thanks for clarifying things. Sure I am willing to involve myself in this. Will PM on of the guys involved in this project.
PS: Sorry for posting empty messages accidentally.
PRAJA.IN COMMENT GUIDELINES
Posting Guidelines apply for comments as well. No foul language, hate mongering or personal attacks. If criticizing third person or an authority, you must be fact based, as constructive as possible, and use gentle words. Avoid going off-topic no matter how nice your comment is. Moderators reserve the right to either edit or simply delete comments that don't meet these guidelines. If you are nice enough to realize you violated the guidelines, please save Moderators some time by editing and fixing yourself. Thanks!